Bee Careful

“Do you want to see a swarm of bees?” my wife asked me. 

    Paul and Deanne  pulled into our driveway last night around 7:30 PM.  They stopped to see if we’d  like to see the swarm  of honey bees Paul had spotted  on an old wood fence post.

      Here’s what we saw: 

This is a large cluster of bees.  When we got there, they were pretty quiet.

 

This is a picture of Dean/ a local bee keeper setting a bee hive down on the ground below the swarm.  I noticed he was wearing shorts. 

Here’s Dean squirting honey on the hive

 

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Here he is physically picking up  the bees and placing them on the hive.

Dean said they were not his  bees.  He thinks another bee keeper lost a swarm because he didn’t take the time to split the hive in the Spring.  He said if there are too many bees in one hive, they will take off (just like this band of traveling bees)  He told us he did get a couple of stings on his leg  as he was working with these bees. 

     As many of you know, we have a small orchard (100 trees)  I’ve been told larger orchards will pay to have a hive of honey bees placed in their orchards while the trees are in bloom.   Unless an apple trees flowers gets pollinated, it will not become an apple.

     Here are some pictures of  our trees I took yesterday.  You an already see the small apples forming:

 

 

      Here’s a picture of what I’m pretty sure is  purple phlox next to our barn from the 1800’s:

If you’re looking for something fun to do this year, think about staying in our B and B.  For a price, I will give you the keys to  the orchard and you can pick your own apples.    We also picked up a dozen chickens a couple of weeks ago:

It won’t be too long before they start laying eggs.  You could go out and gather your own fresh eggs for breakfast.  Drop me a line and I tell you  when some of these  things will be happening.  Lest I forget…the concert series kicks off this coming Saturday…the first of 7 concerts.  Each of the artists coming  is  awesome.  You won’t regret coming to see them.  Gayla Drake Paul for example  is coming in July.  She is on the list of the top 100 guitarists on the planet.   Here’s a link to the series if you’re interested.  Drop me a line if you want to know more about any of these things.